Jason Toney, currently of CBS Interactive, and previously of AXS/AEG, Disney Interactive, and Bunim-Murray Productions, is all about digital media. He's held site and content production roles and is presently most interested in data-driven strategy work. This is his personal blog. Yeah, he still does that on occasion.

Oct 16 My Tumblr is Tryin' to Tell Me Somethin'

We used to have Internet companies we loved. This isn’t rose-tinted nostalgia about The Good Old Days; The apps were uglier, and harder to use, and less popular back then. But we rooted for the companies that made them, because we knew that the people who made Flickr, or Blogger, or Movable Type, or Upcoming, or Manila, or Delicious, or countless other early social apps really loved the web. We loved the web because it changed our lives, permanently and for the better. That is, in fact, what I was really grieving for almost a year ago when I wrote The Web We Lost. But I was wrong. That web isn’t lost. It’s just dormant.

The world needs sustainable, profitable, vibrant content companies staffed by dedicated professionals; especially content for people that grew up on the web, whose entertainment and news interests are largely neglected by television and newspapers.

[T]he best brands focus not on what they do or how they do it, but why they do it. Find your why and you’ve found your story. Transcend category by focusing on your role in people’s lives. Compelling brand stories speak to values, to what your brand stands for and why it exists.

The job of the change agent is not just to surface high-minded ideas. It is to summon a sense of urgency inside and outside the organization, and to turn that urgency into action. It’s one thing for leaders to use fresh eyes to devise a new line of sight into the future. It’s quite another to muster the rank-and-file commitment to turn a compelling vision into a game-changing performance. My friend and Fast Company cofounder Alan Webber puts it well. Progress, he likes to say, is a math formula. It only happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change. That’s why the third principle of change is for leaders to encourage a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo, to persuade their colleagues that business as usual is the ultimate risk, not a safe harbor from the storms of disruption.

Designers would do well to embrace this parent-as-designer comparison. There are limits to how much you can control the life of something you’ve created. What matters is being clear about your principles. Then you can have faith that the final product will turn out fine.